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Since commissioned into the Royal Navy service in 1998 she has been involved in operations off Sierra Leone (2000), Operation Telic off Iraq (2003), operations off Libya (2011) and most recently, humanitarian operations in the Caribbean.

The ship today arrived from Portsmouth.

The ship has been sold to the Brazilian Navy for £84million (Image: Bradley Darlington)

On arrival of the ship, a Warrant Officer for the Royal Navy said: “As you can seem HMS Ocean has just come back alongside and birthed in Plymouth for the final time which has been quite a sad and appointed day for various members of the ships company.

“Six of us, myself included were original crew so we joined the ship in Barrow-In-Furness in 1997, we were part of the crew who were commissioned to her in September 1998 so bring her back into Plymouth for the final time today has been quite a strange, unique and tearful experience for some of the guys.

HMS Ocean: The impressive numbers

The 667ft-long HMS Ocean is an amphibious helicopter carrier and the Royal Navy's biggest ship at a staggering 21,500 tonnes.

With a top speed of 18 knots - equivalent to around 21 mph - the ship can accommodate almost 1,300 people and 40 vehicles.

And there is still enough space left on board for 18 helicopters, including the Apache, the Merlin Mk3 and the Chinook Mk2.

The ship was first launched on 11 October 1995, and was later named at Barrow by Her Majesty the Queen in February 1998.

Since then, she has been deployed on various Royal Navy missions - including reducing stranded military personnel after the air travel disruption after the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption.

In 2002, the ship sparked a diplomatic incident when she accidentally landed on the San Felipe beach in the Spanish town of La Linea instead of Gibraltar, as various media outlets labelled the mistake as an "invasion".

But in November 2015, the Ministry of Defence confirmed HMS Ocean is to be decommissioned in 2018 - despite recently undergoing a £65million refit - as part of cost saving measures with no like-for-like replacement.

Under the 2015 Strategic Defence Review, one of two 65,000-ton Queen Elizabeth-class carriers would instead be "enhanced" to support Royal Marine amphibious operations.

“We’ve been out at sea doing aviation training for the last couple of weeks with various squadrons both navy and air squadrons.

The ship will stay in Plymouth before a decommission service in March (Image: Bradley Darlington)

“We’re tucked in alongside now so we’ve just realised the ships company for the weekend and when we come back we commence our preparations for our decommissioning ceremony towards the end of March.

“Then handing the ship, hopefully over to the Brazilians towards the end of June.”

Crew have quite an affiliation with the ship and have served several years on board. This crew will spread out and go wherever the Navy needs them.